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(Part of) Why Trump Won

I'm not one for commenting on political matters. I have my own views and they're not going to change and you have yours and any debate just turns into pointless arguments and ruins friendships. (Part of the reason I deleted Facebook, a story for another time.)I wrote this poem a few months ago and wasn't going to publish it but given the outcome of the election, what the hell... I'll follow it up with how it relates to Trump.

The Foot Soldiers of Political Change

aka

Change is in the Wind, like a stale fart

They took
something bad

And made it
right

And then
repeated the same mistake

Never knowing
when to stop

Without observing
the flapping faux pas

On their nose

Like a discarded
embryo sac

Made buoyant by
the hot winds

Of time

Once again
solidifying

The corpses of errors

Piled endlessly
down throughout history

Reborn and
Redressed

For the new
school of thought.

Nothing like
running that injustice

Into the putrid
layers

Of hypocrisy

Tomorrow’s
fossil fuel

Still fermenting

Yet if you put your
lips to the populous Holy Wall

The stench is
obvious

As the silver
lining sphincters

From whence superiority
flows.

Eww

For the record, I'm left wing. I'm pro gay marriage, equal rights for women, pro immigration (with conditions) and I've attended all sort of protests over the years. At the end of the day, I'm a humanist. I care about people. All people. All victims. Not just a particular, trendy cross-section (that just so happens to suit those people heralding those same particular causes.)

Essentially the Far Left has hijacked the populous media to the point where if you are not a feminist, you are sexist (just to make the point). Any sort of discussion on a range of topics, will see you branded as racist, sexist or homophobic. It's black and white thinking. It's hate filled, condescending and judgmental. All it does is eliminates attempts at reasonable debate and creates segregation. The irony being that this attitude is extremely intolerant. People are filled with hypocrisy (including me) and they just can't see it. For example, its perfectly acceptable to criticise straight, white males but no one else. That in itself, is sexist and racist. Pathetic really.

Not a great example but many rap lyrics are filled with comments re bitches and ho's. I listen to independent radio, I hear them all the time. This, just this week; 'I threw that bitch from the cliff.' Where's the outrage? Where's the protest? It does not come because no one wants the 'racist' branding. Yet with many legitimate (and idiotic) things to say have been silenced. No one wants to hear them. The working class too, have always felt abandoned, none more so than recent times.Essentially, the Far Left has allowed the Right to enter and prosper. It's happened here in Australia too. One Nation has risen again after twenty years, far larger than it ever was. The Left are to blame for this. Hilary Clinton's campaign seemed to focus a lot on women's rights. That's great, but policy has to extend beyond one aspect of society. Politicians should represent all the people, and that's what Trump promised. Clinton may have had other policies, I'm not certain, as 80% of the media coverage (in Australia at least) was on Trump. And they're the same ones asking how did this happen. Trump played the media like the fools they are. They have been doling out politically correct haughtiness for years too, while ignoring other important issues. The truth should prevail, not popularity.See my recent article on suicide, Not enough attention to Men.

Post election, we've seen a lot of protests, rage and intolerance. From the people against intolerance. It reminds me of Victorian times, with their stuffy superiority attitudes. (If you want to fit in, do as we do and say. Okaaaayyyy!!)Look, I'm still Left Wing. I supported Political Correctness (when it was necessary) but not what it's become. I don't support Trump but common sense went out the window years ago. In fact, he could not have won this election a few years ago. The Left did this to themselves.

16 comments:

I will disagree about it being about the left, I think it's more about the fact that rural Americans have been left out of the discussion by both the republicans and democrats in the US. They are not part of the Information revolution. Clinton appeared to be all about elitism, with pop stars surrounding her - she had history too. 46% of Americans eligible to vote did not vote. 27% of the population is Hispanic, only half of them voted. One of the reasons might be the massive gerrymandering of many US states which many might think makes it pointless to vote. Trump is already back tracking, no wall, no mass deportation of illegal immigrants, keeping part of Obama care. But the huge problem is US action on the climate will go backwards and probably lead the world backwards. Trump promises massive tax cuts, and massive expenditure on infrastructure. So he is either going to have to run up a massive amount of debt, or forget the infrastructure spend. I can't see him forgetting the tax cuts. Incidentally good old Rupert Murdoch was a massive media supporter of Trump.

Incidentally, in Australia, just as a sign that the major parties are out of touch with rural Australia, there was a by election for a seat in NSW in Orange yesterday, the Nationals formally had a huge majority, they look like loosing to the Shooters and Fishers party. https://www.google.com.au/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=CosnWO_8Oq7M8geM66bgCg#safe=off&q=orange+by+election

One Nation only got about 5% of the vote Australia wide, if there had not been a double dissolution election none of them would probably have got in.

Those on the extreme right like Cory Bernardi who claim it is all the fault of the left (Labour) being out of touch, forget that his own party is out of touch too.

Incidentally, I think Labour and the Democrats in the US are very much to the right. I think Fairfax has moved to the right recently. So the left has very little media influence in Australia - about all there is is Radio National and its puny audience. I believe the ABC to be more factual, and mixed. Just heard Macca on his very popular program Australia all Over, lauding Trump.

When I mentioned the working class being forgotten about, I did mean rural areas too. I realise that many did not vote. It's those swinging states that turned. The ABC is left and always has been. So is SBS. (Q & A, Insight etc). And you will only see a 'racist rant' online if it comes from a white person. People still voted for One Nation regardless, and they would not have done so ten years ago.I appreciate your thoughts and comments. And I agree, Trump will soften. He knows the media better than most and used them to his advantage.

Thought you might be interesting in media watch this week, it gives a number of reasons for Trump winning. Facebook and the misinformation on it is blamed by many. But Michael Moore said that Trump would win, he has a documentary coming out and part of it was shown where Moore talked about Trump visiting the rust belt in the US and saying to Ford that if they moved their car manufacturing to Mexico, he would put a 35% tariff on any car they tried to import back into the US. So it seems he spoke to the disaffected voter, Clinton didn't.

So essentially Trump told the punters what they wanted to hear, lies and all, manipulated the media to his own ends, and will no doubt back flip on many promises once he's in. Yep. Sounds just like a normal politician to me!

Why did Ford wait until the 20th after the election? Must have wanted Trump to win with his other lie/promise of 45% tariffs against China. I suppose we will have to wait for a few months for the media to search through all the crap and then see what Trump actually does. Interesting to see that a real lefty in Moore still predicted a Trump win though.

Good point Graham. Suss. I like Moore, for the most part. He's is in tune with grass roots people I believe. I didn't predict it but I was looking for my mates address to send a xmas card on a previous text and found this:

On the ABC news last night they were talking about Trump changing the decisions of many companies that had announced they were going to move their companies offshore and out of the US. One of those companies was Ford which had announced it was no longer going to spend 1.5 Billion creating a new plant in Mexico. So it would seem Moore was right. Incidentally, I recently heard that most of the pundits were predicting Mick Romney would win the 2012 election, and he didn't. I watched a Fox News discussion about it and they were blaming single women who only cared about abortion for the loss. In the recent Victorian election I am under the impression that most media predicted a return of the Liberal govt. They got it wrong there too. So it would appear that the media get it wrong a bit.

Yes and no about the protesting, Anthony. I hate hate. We hate hate. We cannot tolerate it. We must not allow for it. This means screaming and shouting against it, if that's what it means. This means lives with be lost in the fight against it. That's always what it's meant.

Thanks Robyn. I understand what yr saying, but hate has never succeeded against hate. It only breeds more conflict. These protests only do damage; like a fuck you to democracy. Its hypocritical. If you don believe in democracy, then what does that say? A fascist state?Judgement clearly has many faces. Besides, he's already softened. And as i said, he played the media (and his own followers) like a cheap record. We've already seen a completely different Trump; he's smarter than most gave him credit for. The media gave him victory. Give it time. He's far more in tune that Bush Jnr for example. The worst leader any nation has presented, ever. A shocking example, at a crucial time. Arent we still dealing with his disastrous decisions?

Hi Anthony! This a great and thought provoking post. Trump being president is scary enough, but when you add Steve Bannon into the mix, it scares the crap out of me. If you're not familiar with Bannon, Google his name. This guy is the voice of white nationalism.

When Trump's says "make america great again," he's really saying "make america WHITE again." Some of the hats and tee shirts at his rallies actually said that. Another popular one was "Hillary is a cunt. They even broke out one of the more popular t shirts from the last election, it was "put "white" back in the white house. I'm not optimistic at all about what is to come.

Yes, I agree with Pat. I also think Trump is not smarter, but more stupid, than given credit for. He has no clue how to run the country, so he's appointing people to do the work of overturning Roe v Wade (illegalizing abortion), systemic racism against Muslims, Blacks, AND Jews - he's appointed rabid anti-Semites - etc. This means not even all Whites are safe. I do believe we're collectively powerful enough to fight back - the numbers are in favor of the side of what's just and fair. But of course our power is limited. We'll have to fight however we can. Don't get me wrong, I don't favor violent protests. Yet we have to fight against a terribly beastly force. It's likely to come to that. Bush didn't spew any of Trump's racist rhetoric, neither Bush.We'll see though. A lot of grassroots organizing is well on the way, none of it promoting any form of violence.

Thanks for your insight guys. His racism is pretty frightening that's true, and certainly the racists have come to the party. I'm sure there's plenty of nasty t-shirts. Yet there was footage of a democrat attacking a trump supporter on an escalator just yesterday, so no one's doing themselves any favours with this type of protest. No one's saying you have to like it, but if you believe in democracy, don't you have to accept it? What's the solution? Communism? Fascism? He's toned down the bullshit talk to focusing on jobs. Apparently. Look, im not a supporter but he was voted in. Democracy at work haha. The Divided states of America. It's terrible really.Anyway, not sure how it works there but here leaders can be toppled from those inside their own party, but it'll be interesting to see how things play out. I just think the side of 'good' could have won those swinging states if they'd been smarter about directing their policies and working the media like Trump did. Controversy and big talk sells and that's exactly what he did.

Bio

A.J. Langford grew up in a town of 600, somehow ended up in London and now lives in Sydney. Aside from writing, he's a Television Editor, Video Producer and an Aged Care Recreational Officer. He's created short films, music videos, video poetry and directed short plays. Many stories and poems have been published in many countries from the U.S. to Europe, Asia and Australasia.

Books: He has written four small books (see links under Header) and a collaboration with an Italian artist, For Your Pleasure (2015).

He's written seven novels which remain unpublished though plans to release some of them from 2019 onwards.